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On Sunday, September 23, NHK news broadcast a video of U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta seated next to and speaking with Chinese Vice Chairman and soon-to-

China's Vice President Xi Jinping (L) and US Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta review a guard of honor before their meeting at the Pentagon in Washington, DC, on February 14, 2012. China's likely next leader Xi Jinping said that Beijing will take concrete steps to improve human rights as he admitted 'there is always room for improvement.' (Image credit: AFP/Getty Images via @daylife)

be supreme leader Xi Jinping on September 19 in Beijing. During that meeting, reported NHK, Panetta told Xi that U.S. policy is that the Senkaku islands (claimed as Chinese territory by Beijing) are covered by the U.S.-Japan security alliance. If there is military conflict, the U.S. is obliged under the alliance to intervene.

The September 21st Yomiuri Shimbun, cited testimony of Assistant Secretary of State for Asian Affairs Kurt Campbell to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee the day before confirming that the Senkakus come under Article 5 of the U.S.-Japan Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security. Campbell said that U.S. policy on this has been clear since 1997.

Watching and listening carefully to what the Chinese side has made of the Panetta visit, my sense is very different to what may seem to be the meaning and implications of the above.

First, I have seen no mention in the state-controlled Chinese media of Panetta’s comment on the U.S. obligation under the U.S.-Japan treaty. What the media has prominently reported has been Panetta’s affirmation to Xi that U.S. policy ‘takes no sides’ on territorial disputes in Asia, including that over the Senkakus/Diaoyudao. This is also long-standing U.S. policy.

Partly owing to the almost unimaginable power of the weapons and men his department commands, but also his relative gravitas, Panetta has the most credibility in China of any U.S. government official. It was noteworthy that Chinese official media accentuated Panetta’s upbeat appraisal of U.S.-China relations and plans for stepping up exchanges and joint exercises between U.S. and Chinese military forces.

So which is it? Is U.S. policy that we are ready to go to war with China to defend the Senkakus? Didn’t we say we “take no position” on the matter? The answer--in the subtle and often paradoxical and contradictory realm of foreign relations--is both, or, more likely, neither. But we should not think that the subtlety and ambiguity of these positions leaves all sides with the same comfort, options, and risks.

What does Article 5 of the U.S.-Japan Treaty actually say though? Here it is:

Each Party recognizes that an armed attack against either Party in the territories under the administration of Japan would be dangerous to its own peace and safety and declares that it would act to meet the common danger in accordance with its constitutional provisions and processes. Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall be immediately reported to the Security Council of the United Nations in accordance with the provisions of Article 51 of the Charter. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security.

I am reminded of an interview given about two years ago by Japan’s last genuinely successful prime minister, Nakasone Yasuhiro, whose tenure roughly matched Reagan’s. Advising how Japan should conduct its foreign policy, and particularly the pivotal relationship with the U.S., Nakasone was trenchantly realistic: Japan should endeavor to procure (in the legal sense of “cause to do”) U.S. power to serve Japan’s interests and objectives.

In the case of the Senkakus, this seems to have happened. Or at least, when the Noda government felt compelled to respond to the force majeure situation created by Tokyo governor Ishihara’s bid to buy the islands, and decided upon nationalization, the U.S.-Japan treaty was available as perhaps the decisive element that gave the decision makers the confidence they needed to make the decision.